Category Archives: Dungeons & Dragons Monsters

D&D Monster Manual 97: Temple of Elemental Evil – Air Cult Warriors, Fire Cult Warriors and Water Cult Warriors (Fire Water Burn!)

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The blog’s been quite for a week or so as I haven’t been able to paint all that much for the past little while. I did manage to spend a very late night watching a young fellow on the streets of Rostov livestream a bunch of Wagnerites waiting around for the Chechens, but sadly, Prigozhin blinked and everyone went to bed (including myself). Regardless, I did manage to paint another batch of the D&D Boardgame models over the last couple of weeks, and now I’ll definitely be focusing on non-D&D models for awhile..

Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Air Cultist Warriors

Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Air Cultist Warriors

I found some artwork for all three types of cultist, and used them as general inspiration for my models, though I thought the Air Cultists looked much too dark for “air”. Good, but too dark.

Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Fire Cultist Warriors

Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Fire Cultist Warriors

Of the three, I think these Fire guys are my favourites. But let’s face it, the bar is pretty low here. I added a glimse of simple OSL onto the floor which I’m just now noticing leaked onto the rims. If I cared more about these, I’d clean that up, but, you know…

Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Water Cultist Warriors Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Water Cultist Warriors

Finally I have these discount-Namor-impersonators with (for some reason) greaser hair. I gave them deeper, richer teal/turquioise/aqua colours to represent the …aqua and visually define them from the Air Force up top.

Anyway, these models are once again mid models with mid paintjobs, but they’ll look completely fine at arm’s length on the boardgame tiles. I’m also another good chunk closer to completing those D&D boardgames, so once i can steel myself back to facing more of them, I’ll knock more of them out. Until then, I’ve got some other models what need finishing, and also apparently the Season of Scenery Starts Soon. Gonna try and finish some things I wanted to finish last year. And the year before….

But first, one (or maybe two) more posts for June…

D&D Monster Manual 96: Temple of Elemental Evil – Gnoll Archers

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Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Gnolls

My final D&D boardgame models for a little bit. I mean, there could (and probably will) be more of them in a week or so, and I’ve got another pair of the heroes started and a trio of villains ready to get to work on, but they’re not the top of the priority list until at least next weekend.

Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Gnolls

 

These Gnolls, like the previous post’s Bugbears are on the upper tier of the boardgame minis, being very much Nolzurs’-level sculpts. In the case of these Gnolls, I can appreciate a lot more of what the sculptor was trying to do, and my only real criticisms are with the PVC material that the sculpt was created in which turned several of the finer details into chewing gum.

 

The model was pretty obviously based on this piece of artwork, with the spear replaced with a bow. I’ve found this sort of thing to be pretty common with later licenced D&D minis -where a sculpt (often digital) is made to match the artwork, right down to the details of stuff on their belts, and then any variations are made from that, but with minimal variation. This is fine to an extent, but that’s something that (again) I have to credit GW for – their reused digital sculpt assets do have various accoutrements added to them in various combinations to make the individual models more unique – even on models like Space Marines or Stormcast! I’ll have some examples in later posts where I’ve found Nolzurs’ models that are pretty much the exact same digital sculpt as previous figures – only reposed.

Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Figures D&D Temple of Elemental Evil – Gnoll, Bugbear, Earth Cult Warrior, Doppelganger, Birdsong Tabaxi Bard

As you can see, these Gnolls are big lads. I did have to check, and sure enough, in D&D they are large and in some sort of charge. My main experience with Gnolls has been in EverQuest, where they’re shorter than the average human and can be found in great numbers down in Blackburrow and also that place outside the halfling town from memory.The colours I used were broadly inspired by the artwork, but I varied them a little with the overall aim to keep them looking manky and dirty. Ratling Grime Contrast makes for a nice, dirty wash!